CASTRO VALLEY -- The owners of a residential care home that stranded sick and bedridden residents after being forced by the state to close last week had a long and troubled history running senior homes and paying debts to banks, landlords and a casino, according to court records dating back to the 1990s.

Some of those problems invited increasing scrutiny from state officials over the past year. But even after a foreclosure forced the same owners to give up their Oakland facility this spring, state overseers were unprepared for what happened last weekend, when all but three workers at Valley Springs Manor abandoned the Castro Valley home and about a dozen residents still living there.

Ina Wind, 70, recalls her and her sister's experience while living at Valley Manor Care Home in Castro Valley. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

"It's just been terrible," said Anita Phillips, whose 81-year-old ex-husband, Stan Phillips, was transported from the home by ambulance after a skeleton crew -- including a cook -- called 911 on Saturday.

State officials warned Anita Phillips in a phone call last Tuesday that they were forcing the home's closure Thursday because of a host of violations the owners declined to fix. But when she visited Valley Springs Manor, she said "three of the caretakers said they would stay until Monday. They promised they would take care of Stan or they would call me to tell me that they couldn't."

That promise was unmet, she said. Her husband remains hospitalized at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland.

The crisis mirrored a similar situation in March, when the same owners closed their Eden Manor senior home on Fruitvale Avenue in Oakland. But in Oakland, unlike in Castro Valley, a longer transition allowed the facility to get a new owner, who took over the license, cleaned up the property, hired new staff with a new philosophy and allowed many residents to stay on.

"When we came in ... there was no heat, no water, a rodent-infested kitchen," said Cristina Flores, managing partner of the new Fruitvale Avenue home, renamed WoodPark. "We had to work very hard to get the license because the place was so dilapidated. ... There was inadequate staff, inadequate training, the food was far below standard. They were just being served beans and rice."

Hilda Manuel ran both homes with her husband, Rodelio Manuel, and their daughter, Mary Julleah Manuel. She touted more than 25 years caring for the elderly in a court declaration involving her Oakland site's mortgage problems last year. Her daughter until recently handled record-keeping, and her husband "takes the menus, plans the shopping and seeks out the best bargains to provide wholesome, nutritious food for our residents at the lowest available cost," she wrote.

Disputing that rosy portrait are state and county officials and former residents, including one who lived in both the Oakland and Castro Valley homes.

"The food was bad, the workers were bad, everything was bad," said Ina Wind, who is legally blind and has an artificial knee. She and her wheelchair-using sister, Lila Jones, lived in Valley Springs Manor for four months before Wind was able to get them transferred in March.

Attracting more state scrunity was an Alameda County volunteer advocate's routine visit to the Castro Valley facility in March. The Alameda County Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program then sent staff to investigate and relayed warnings to the state agency that oversees senior home licensing.

A closure sign has been posted on the front door of the Valley Manor Community Care Home in Castro Valley, Calif., on Monday, Oct. 28, 2013. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

"The state did exactly what they were supposed to do, (but) the programs that are there to protect elders and seniors are not strong enough," said Victoria Tolbert, director of Alameda County's Area Agency on Aging. "You run the risk of having these things happening when you don't have eyes on the seniors who are essentially invisible to us until something like this happens."

Court records show legal and financial troubles dogging the Manuels since as early as 1996. Banks, property owners and other businesses have sued the Manuels for allegedly failing to pay bills as they bounced from running one senior care facility to another.

Among the unpaid bills were a $4.1 million loan from Wells Fargo Bank, a $2.3 million loan to an owner of a senior care facility they purchased in 1997 and a $129,114 bill from MGM Grand Hotel/Casino in Las Vegas. Hilda Manuel "owed a lot of people a lot of money" but paid back the gambling and most other debts by 2005, said her lawyer, Orrin Grover.

The Manuels did not answer the door Monday to their home in the San Leandro hills. Grover disputed assertions of inadequate care and said the three workers caring for the 11 remaining residents was enough. "The residents were properly cared for," he said.